The Hunt for Ohio's River Styx Ghost Train

For decades, local ghost hunters have ventured to a steel trestle near Medina,
Ohio, hoping to catch a glimpse of a phantom train. They say it comes crashing
down the bridge landing in a fiery inferno in the creek below. It's a spooky
reenactment of a real train accident which folks say happened there about a
hundred years ago. Some people snap a few photos of orbs; other claim to hear a
train whistle. But so far, no one has actually witnessed the ghost train. Did
the spirits from that terrible night finally find peace, or was it just a
legend?

For starters, it might help if they were looking in the right place.

I've heard about the "River Styx Ghost Train" many times in my life. I even took
a few daytime trips down River Styx Road along the west branch of the Rocky
River and under the trestle just to see the place. There are excerpts of
newspaper stories on some paranormal websites giving some of the details of the
accident, and for some reason the facts just never sat quite right to me. I
shoved that story away for years and forgot about it until Jeri Holland brought
it up this past spring.

Now, Jeri and I were once fierce rivals, each trying to stake our claim over the
Cuyahoga Valley and beat each other to the next ghost story discovery. We both
mellowed a bit over the years, realizing the pettiness of acting like ghost
hunting was a competition, and have worked together off and on for the past few
years. She had been approached by The History Press to write a book on haunted
places in Akron, Ohio, and asked me to help her out on her first book. I
naturally said yes.

Part way through researching some other places in the Akron area, Jeri mentioned
to me she wanted to include the River Styx train story in the book. After
reading all the newspaper articles about the accident in 1899, she was convinced
it happened closer toward Akron. I reread the accounts and agreed with her.
According to the newspapers, the Erie Limited was heading west from Akron in the
early morning hours of March 22, 1899, when the driving rod on Engine No. 5
snapped. At the throttle was engineer Alexander W. Logan. With all his might, he
tried to reverse the locomotive; sensing disaster, Logan commandeered the engine
as it veered off the rails and crashed at the trestle over the River Styx. All
passengers and crew survived except for Logan. They found him in the wreckage,
still clutching the throttle. The accident happened not near Medina, but just
outside Rittman, Ohio.

Like many towns, Rittman was built largely by the railroads. The Atlantic &
Great Western Railroad first came through in 1836 and gave the town enough
economic boom to become a city. Not long after, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
also built a line through Rittman; in fact, the town was named after Fred
Rittman: the treasurer of the B&O. You can still see parts of these original
lines today. We now knew the city, but where was the bridge?

I'll confess I'm very much a railroad enthusiast and have been since I could
walk. When Jeri raised the question about finding the site of the Erie Railroad
bridge mentioned in the accident, I jumped right on it, sifting through old maps
and documents. I knew the Erie bought out other lines. (Hundreds of old
railroads merged with bigger companies between 1860 and 1930.) After comparing
old maps, I had a strong feeling I knew which set of tracks was the old Erie
line. Luckily, Rittman made it easy for me. One street which bordered the old
tracks was renamed Erie Avenue.

The newspaper clippings from the accident gave the final clue. The bridge was "a
mile east of the depot." Find the old depot, find the bridge. And sure enough,
tracing the tracks northeast from the depot site there was a railroad bridge
crossing the River Styx. Checking a current satellite image of Rittman, I found
that the bridge was still there. Obviously, it wasn't the exact same bridge from
1899, but it was in the same location. With deadlines and other delays, it
wasn't possible to go to the site to examine it, but by August our schedules
lightened up enough that Jeri and I set out to make the trip to Rittman and
visit the real haunted River Styx bridge.

The sun was just beginning to set when we arrived on the fringe of the Morton
Salt plant east of town. And there it was: a faded pale green plate girder
bridge stretching across a 100 foot span above the River Styx. Though it was in
poor condition, it showed some signs of use. The old tracks heading to Barberton
were very warped and uneven. But aside from the slow, steady flow of traffic
along Ohio Avenue, the area was quite peaceful. On the west abutment, we held a
makeshift investigation with minimal equipment. Our main goal was to document
the site, not find definitive evidence of the haunting. As the light faded and
darkness set in, we checked out a nearby pond. Mosquitoes were bloodthirsty and
relentless, so we didn't end up staying very long.

Though our trip was brief, there was something wonderful about visiting a site
forgotten by history for so long. Newspapers in 1900, 1901, and 1902 reported
encounters with a phantom train along those tracks. Over the next century, the
story lived on and evolved, changing locations to the bridge outside of Medina.
Indeed, the Medina steel trestle makes for a more interesting place to imagine a
train wreck. Had a locomotive plunged into the valley at that location, it might
have resembled the Ashtabula Bridge Disaster (which is likely what caused the
reimagining of the incident).

Jeri has planned a proper investigation of the site for October on the
anniversary of two ghostly sightings in Rittman. Hopefully, something
significant will happen; after more than a century of neglect and with no recent
reports of anything unusual at the location, I'm reluctant to expect anything
noteworthy. These true tales have been too long ignored by the people of
northeast Ohio. Today, many paranormal investigators prefer the popular,
well-trodden "hot spots" popularized by television instead of obscure places
which have faded from memory long ago. Yet our paranormal history should not be
forgotten.

You can read the full story behind the River Styx Ghost Train and many other
historic hauntings in Jeri's book
Haunted Akron, now available in stores.

Ken Summers is a paranormal researcher, blogger, lecturer, and author of
Queer Hauntings. To learn more about his work and future projects, visit his
website The Moonspenders.